


Winters Carol

by mihrsuri



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Childhood Memories, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Introspection, Multimedia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 13:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8626510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: In the first Christmas of her marriage in Ingleside Anne Shirley-Blythe looks back on the houses and Christmas times of her life.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rina (rinadoll)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinadoll/gifts).



Happy Yuletide to my recipient - may this be warm and cosy for you! (Title from a song by Tori Amos on the Midwinter Graces Christmas album.  Bonus graphics for this story can be found [here](http://yuletidegraphics.tumblr.com)

 

* * *

 

Anne and Gilbert close on their new house at the end of the first year of their marriage. Anne is sad to say goodbye to their tiny rental ("our house of dreams <333\. Thank you for being our darling home" is what she captions the final farewell photo on) that sits close to the beach and was where she made friends with Leslie (Leslie and Owen who will keep the tiny house of dreams as a holiday place for them all)  but Ingleside is _their_ house that she and Gilbert bought together. There are practical reasons for it - an easier commute to Gil's practice and her school, needing more space for home offices/sewing room and somewhere with room for their family to grow but really, the big thing for Anne is that it's their place.

 

The House of Dreams had a little dainty kitchen and larder - the place came pre furnished but not the usual ugly practical stuff you'd normally get in rentals but lovely old furniture that looks like it's been used, yes, but Anne likes that. She can find stories in every piece of it and it's clean and warm. Ingleside has a huge renovated open plan kitchen - it has windows that open out onto the trees, big farmhouse sinks that remind Anne of Green Gables and all the space she'd dreamed of as a child.

 

That's the whole house actually. Space. Blossoms. Trees. Even a stream that falls into a pool that's deep enough to swim in. A porch swing, a hammock and a tiny little garden house that Anne has turned into her writing studio and study. It's hard to believe it's all actually hers and Gilbert's, even as they start moving in.

 

That first night they had a Star Trek marathon amongst the boxes, ordered take out from the really nice Italian place and snuggled under the heirloom quilt Mrs Lynde had given them as a housewarming gift. The take out and Star Trek is a continuing tradition from university on - moving to a new place doesn't feel real until it happens. It's when they start planning their first Ingleside Christmas - discussing the traditions they want to create together that Anne starts thinking about, well the other houses and the other Christmases in her life. Not just the most recent ones.

 

When she pulls old photos out of cardboard boxes ( photos she finally has the space to put up!) Anne looks at the images of parents she doesn't remember (they'd died in a car crash along with both sets of her grandparents - Anne had been a baby and somehow survived it), though she's been to the house they lived in - a visit in the middle of summer to a small house with a flowering honeysuckle and big windows. Most of the photos are of winter though - lights, presents, carols (Anne's mother had sung in a choir), a hot chocolate recipe her father had written down. There are some small Christmas Tree ornaments - a little sugar plum fairy doll, tiny glass snowflakes and some tiny china baubles that look like antiques.

 

(Later on Anne gets sent some letters that the new owner of the little yellow house found and she finds love, laughter and the best gingerbread recipe she's ever tried).

Anne doesn't remember that Christmas and that little yellow house but she does think she carried the warmth and love of that home with her.

 

The first house she remembers, really remembers is the Thomas house. It had terrible turkey patterned carpets and horrible 80s wallpaper and Anne had had the third bedroom that had been meant for a babies room. It wasn't bad as foster homes went but it wasn't _good_. There were far too many kids, most of them only there briefly and she could feel that Mrs Thomas thought Anne was ungrateful for what she was given.

 

And she wasn't, not really. It's just that Anne would have liked oh, books just for her, clothes that weren't second hand and badly fitting and maybe a feeling that she was more than just an imposition and a nuisance. But maybe Anne had only imagined the Thomas' felt that way and it wasn't as though they didn't take care of her.

 

Christmas did mean a tree (plastic and with one tiny plastic star atop it though it might be), it did mean Christmas movies (Anne dates her love of the Nutcracker to the Thomas house) and they were all given a wonderful lunch. But it wasn't home.

 

The Hammond house definitely wasn't home. Anne had known from the first that she was there to take care of the twins, take care of the house and to give the Hammonds some extra income. She'd slept on a sofa bed in the back porch for one (she needed to tidy her bedding up during the day) and for another the Hammonds only addressed her to issue a direction or a telling off. Anne had spent Christmas wrapping presents for the twins, getting the twins dressed in their Christmas finery, cooking the Christmas dinner and the cookies.

 

After that Green Gables had been nothing but magic. Anne hadn't quite believed it was real, that she really had a home again - a place where people like Matthew and Marilla existed, cared for and loved her, Anne Shirley. Anne Shirley who had learned to make plum pudding, who managed to get flour everywhere while making shortbread and was allowed to make hot chocolate. Anne Shirley who went ice skating and sledding with _friends_. Anne Shirley who was given presents.

 

Anne had kept all those first presents - the beautiful dress from Matthew, hand knitted mittens from Mrs Lynde, a sewing kit from Marilla, a beautiful Clara from the Nutcracker doll from Diana and cookies from Jane. There had been others to join them but those first gifts? Oh those first gifts had been a beautiful thing - the warmth of kindred spirits and love rediscovered.

 

Christmas at Redmond University had been pure fun. She, Stella, Priscilla and Pippa had spent far too much time baking ("All different kinds of baking as well - stress, love, happiness, sadness, finals, procrastination, late night whims and in my case 'hey I can make cake in a mug at least" Pippa had said with a laugh. When she'd met Jo, she'd learned to make Challah). They'd spent far too much time at the local Timmys and decorating their rooms and eventually the tiny little house they'd rented in their final year. It had meant making snow people on the lawn, snow fights on the lawn (it was surprising how much you could make Gilbert laugh through ridiculous snow fights even in the midst of the worst of med school), trips out to make a fire and make hot chocolate and way way too much gingerbread. Or maybe not enough. Their group had made homemade decorations out of paper and bought cheap coloured fairy lights and tacked up Christmas cards on their doors and bulletin boards and Anne had delighted in it, delighted in the fact that she had friends and people and a home for Christmas and for always.

 

And now? Now she has a home that is hers and Gilberts all stitched together. It has pieces from both their lives and pieces that are simply theirs and this? This makes for a truly happy Christmas.


End file.
